About Big Chill Adventures

Adventure Travel & Photography

Mastering the art of the perfect adventure from 40+ years in the wild!

How did we get here?

BIG CHILL ADVENTURES
Ice is intoxicating. Like staring into the flames of a fire, marveling at the layers of a glacier or admiring the spires of an iceberg can easily eat up an hour of your time. But who’s counting? No one on a Big Chill Adventures’ trip is looking at their watch. They’re too immersed in their surroundings—always a stunning marriage of exotic and Arctic. These destinations—Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and the Canadian Rockies—are handpicked by Big Chill Adventures’ founders, and guides, Sarah Aciego and Mindy Cambiar.

As a professor of Glaciology at the University of Michigan, Sarah approached her mom, Mindy, in 2014 about leading small group tours to her beloved research site, Greenland. A graduate of the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, Mindy embraced the idea of sharing her technical skills with travelers.

Within a year, Big Chill Adventures had guided several groups of curious lovers of colder destinations. Due to popular demand, itineraries to Iceland were soon added to the trip roster and Dr. Emily Stevenson, a PhD graduate of Oxford University’s geochemistry program, joined the mother daughter duo. Combined, they bring more than 40 years of experience and expertise in their respective fields.

While every Big Chill adventure accentuates its destination’s most remarkable features, each trip is also tailored to reward travelers with experiences based on their individual preferences. Want to soak your stress away in a natural hot spring? Sarah knows the least-crowded one. Care to capture the spirit of Icelandic horses on camera? Mindy will show you how to leverage natural lighting. Need to know the composition of the volcanic rocks you’re standing on? Emily is your girl.

And if you feel like just standing there, gazing at a natural phenomenon you can’t see at home, that’s okay too. Even the Big Chill guides get speechless sometimes.

People Power

Our Guides are the Secret Weapon behind our Success.

``The ice cap itself was a siren singing me back to Greenland, its walls of blue sapphire and sheer immensity always beguiling.”